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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Jake Long update, and a trick play to steal

I've been trying to keep tabs on how Jake's been holding up as the number 1 overall pick. Leading up to his selection, I was always suprised that every commentator compared him to Joe Thomas, and each and every one of those comparisons concluded that either Long probably wouldn't be as good as Thomas and/or he was bound for RT.

Joe is a good lineman, smooth, good feet. Great technique and very effective in the run game. Jake was close but couldn't quite match him in those areas, but had always displayed the type of brute, overpowering force that you don't often see translate to the NFL. So I was anxious to see if he could dominate physically at the NFL level, and how he'd fair in his comparisons with Thomas.

The lack of media analysis of the #1 overall pick so far has been very disappointing. Even the dolphins site at scout rarely mentions Long and never discusses his progress. I was even more perplexed to see Jake lined up at RT in all those wild hogcat highlights, yet, he was still being listed as an LT and there was no media mention of a switch. He was blocking well in those highlights so I figured he must have been struggling at LT like many predicted, and had made the switch.

Then I saw the last 3/4 of the Houston-Miami game on NFL replay, which is a fantastic program by the way. There is a lot of commentary which is okay from players, good from coaches, and great from the head of officials. There is the occasionaly indepth breakdown of key plays and they should do a lot more with this. But I digress.

Anyhoo, there was Jake-y at LT squaring off against Mario Williams and holding up quite well. I was confused again, but excited for the measuring stick match up. Then Miami shifted into the hogcat and things became clear. When they go to that formation, Jake doesn't just shift to the right side, he lines up as a TE over there. Brilliant coaching to get Long and Carey together. Even if the defense over loads to the strong side those two can ram enough of a hole playside to get positive yardage. Impressive use of personal.

Jake Observations:

After the 1st half, Mario Williams went head to head with Jake for one play. That pretty much says it all, don't you think?

Like I said, I missed the 1st quarter and Williams was credited with 2 sacks. I only saw one and it was in the 2nd half, so don't know if Jake got beat early on. Jake did get pushed into Pennington once in the 2nd half by the other DE, forcing Chad to move up in the pocket where Williams got sack #2.

Jake looks like Boselli redux out there. He was crumpling players bobby carpenter-style when asked to fire out. They also blocked down with the TE on his side a lot and had him pulling around the left side. He really showed his knack for picking the right guy to block in those situations and getting effective blocks in space at the second level. This is not an area he needs to improve, but is one I think he will keep getting better at until he's among the best in the NFL.

Williams never got close to the QB in their one-on-one battles. Jake gets off the line and into his pass drops so quickly I swore he false started once or twice. However, he retreats a bit too quickly and too deep. He seems overly threatened by the outside pass rush, which leaves the inside move wide open (though nobody took advantage). When single blocking a pass rushing DE, he did not engaged at the snap, instead retreating into his drop and allowing the DE to come to him. When guys went wide against this, he easily rode them out of the play. But he struggled against the bull rush because the DE was basically getting a 2.5 step running start and blasting into a stationary Long. He held his ground adequately in these situations save for the play where his man forced the sack.

He did not appear to work well with the LG Smiley. When the defense slanted right and Jake wasn't really asked to block anyone himself, his "helping" blocks on the guy Smiley was engaged with weren't very effective. There were many times when no Texan bothered to rush from Jake's side, and once he realized this he wasn't good at sliding and helping the rest of his linemates. Picking nits I guess.

Final Observation:

How is that hogcat effective against NFL defenses where the threat of any downfield pass is so remote? The Miami offensive line and TEs deserve a lot of credit for its success, and the coaches have put on a clinic in playing off their own tendencies out of it. Perfect example was the reverse/flea flicker to Pennington who was lined up as WR, which was then thrown to a wide open RB down the field (I would love to see RR steal that one with the throw going to Moundros). But what allows this formation continuing success is the ability to hike it to Brown or Ricky and let the Carey-Long tandem drive forward for 5 yards.

Unbalanced line and all. Long isn't eligible for a pass most of the time because he is generally covered up to allow the TE on the left side to be eligible.

I'd almost put money down on us getting an espn feature about how (insert team that shuts down wildcat offense), was able to stop the offense thanks to schemeing help from (insert SEC defensive coordinator above team went to for help).

The guy to call might be Will "BOOM MOTHERFUCKER" Muschamp, now at Texas. He was Auburn's DC last year and they only allowed 7 points to Arkansas. I don't know how much they used the Wildcat in that game though.

Tricks is onto it - the reason why Jake Long is still a LT is because when running the "Wild Cat," the left tackle lines up on the other side to create the unbalanced line, so while it looks like Long is the RT, technically, he's still the LT. Did that make any sense? Anyways, I think it might actually be good he isn't getting too much coverage because that means that he isn't making huge mistakes or getting killed. Gholsten, however, gets an article a day it seems like on the ESPN NFL Blogs about how slow his progress is. Small victory, I guess.

PS - If anyone looks at the Miami highlight of either last week or two weeks ago, there is a play where Long is leading Ricky Williams into the endzone on what looks like a quick toss to the left (obviously to the left). I can't remember exactly, but I think there was a tight end to Long's left and he blocked down, allowing Jake to "pull" and kick out a safety and leading Williams to the end zone. Good stuff.

Haha, so re-reading the original post, I think I covered exactly what was on there already. So yes, I'm an idiot, but agree with everyone else that this was an incredibly informative post.

Against Houston from the 5, Miami's TE blocked down and Jake pulled left and got enough of the Safety to let Ricky score untouched. Funny you mention that play. At first blush, I was thinking, "Yeah, good block. Got the job down and got the touch. But slightly unsatisfying because it looked like Jake had the chance to make a highlight block where he absolutely crushed the safety or took him into the back of the endzone a la Boren v. Minni last year. Instead he basically just got in the way."

Right after Replay last night I watched the Toledo game. I'm watching Schilling moving up field in space on a screen to McGuff. Schilling has the saftey lined up perfectly. He dove at that mutherfucker from 3 yards away like Willie Mays-Hayes first attempt at stealing second, landed a yard short, and allowed the S to not only tackle for no gain on what would have been 5 yards if Schilling just stopped and stood in front of him, but get a big fat lick on McGuff.

I replayed that 5 times. Never been so pissed off at a UM football player in my entire life.

nice, thanks for the links. Any football fan whose favorite aspect of the game are the physical battles should be on the lookout for Miami games this season. I'd never have known if it weren't for following UM and Jake. My go to used to be the Seahawks with Jones and Hutchinson. As an aside, Hutch seems to have slipped since he left. He's not mauling like he used to.